Johnny Two-Swifts

Dan here.

Passage migrants have been a bit thin on the ground (and in the air) the past few days in Aldcliffe.

(This will make parish patch-watchers Jon and Guy feel a little better as they slum it elsewhere-- Canada and Southern Spain respectively. I hope you are receiving this out there).

This morning, unable to commune with any scarcities, I sat on the wooden fence near Cadaver Corner and called upon The Great Spirit for a sign-- is my hunting in vain?

A few seconds later the earth shook and the Great Spirit fair threw me from my perch. Blimey.

After this 3.7 Richter wake-up my sense of purpose was renewed. Still didn't find owt though!

The pick of today:

2 swifts, 3 or 4 whimbrels, a mixed hirundine rain-flock including twenty house martins and 15 sand martins...5 eider were by the pylons while just downstream twelve knot (3 in summer plumage) and a grey plover thought about crossing the parish line.

Warblers were fairly inconspicuous but one or two blackcaps appeared to be new in, and I noted my first female whitethroats of the year.
Micro-siters might have been impressed by two house sparrows by Darter Pond.
Other than hirundines and swifts vis mig was minimal- with only one siskin and a meadow pipit noted!

Dan.